Good Riddance To Stockman, Who Was Disloyal To The President

I was glad to see David Stockman resign as director of the Office of Management and Budget. Stockman has been one of President Reagan's mistakes.

Stockman is a good example of how intelligence and cleverness are no substitute for wisdom and character. He can remember and juggle numbers and he is quick with a quip, but he has shown himself to be disloyal to his president and naive and foolish in his public statements.

It is disloyal to ridicule in private what the president -- and Stockman -- advocated in public. It is naive and foolish for a public figure to spill it to a journalist, as Stockman discovered when the famous article based on his private comments in The Atlantic magazine sent him ''to the woodshed.''

Later, it was Stockman who blabbed in a speech that someone in the Reagan campaign had a copy of former President Carter's debate briefing book.

Finally, Stockman's public charge that career military men care more about their retirement benefits than national security was unforgivable -- especially from a young squirt who had, when he could have been drafted for the Vietnam War, felt a calling to enter ministerial school. By a strange coincidence, Stockman's desire to be a man of God faded about the same time as the draft.

I suppose it is my Southern heritage, but I always have despised people who are disloyal to their benefactors. If Stockman had disagreed with President Reagan's programs, the honorable course would have been to resign and then speak out. Instead, he tried to ingratiate himself with both the president and the president's critics, taking his cue from another man whose ego exceeded his IQ, Henry Kissinger. As much as I admire Kissinger's brainpower, I have never thought well of him since I learned how he used to ridicule and mock President Nixon -- behind his back.

Stockman's slashing attack against the patriotism of the career military men is evidence of his immaturity and lack of wisdom and perhaps his own guilt for never having served.

To suppose that men interested in money would choose the military as a career is simply naive. The reduced earnings and hardships incurred during even 20 years of military service are in no way compensated by retired pay. Military service, even in peacetime, is not comparable to a civilian job. The job goes on seven days a week, the hours are long, the living conditions are frequently miserable and a career involves frequent moves that disrupt family life. For many, a career involves cumulative years spent away from the family. A man with the ability to rise in the military service easily could make far more money as a civilian.

Military retirement pay is not an old-age pension -- it is deferred compensation and retainer pay for people who remain subject to recall to active duty. Present mobilization plans depend on the recall of a fairly large percentage of retirees.

Nor is retirement pay lavish, though it is better than most private pension plans. The typical retiree is an E-7 who receives about $950 a month. The test of the cookie, though, is that when Stockman, for example, had a chance to jump aboard what he claims is a gravy train, he chose to jump out of the way instead.

Recruitment offices are open for all who think a military career is the path to the riches.

Stockman in the final analysis is typical of the base problem that afflicts government at all levels, without regard to party, philosophy or ideology. The problem is that we are attracting to public offices men with ambition but no sense of honor, men who are clever but who have no desire to make any sacrifice for the good of the nation.

Stockman is so typical. A nobody congressman until Ronald Reagan gave him an opportunity for high visibility, Stockman worked hard to advance the cause of David Stockman. In this he has succeeded. He has got himself a high-paying job with an investment banking firm and a $2 million advance for a book in which he will no doubt exhibit even more disloyalty to his benefactors. Good riddance.